


There’s A New Apollo on Mount Olympus

by pickledragon



Category: The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Apollo (Percy Jackson) Tries To Be A Better Person, Epilogue, Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Implied Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, POV First Person, Post-The Tower of Nero (Trials of Apollo), and suceeds!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:35:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27579908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickledragon/pseuds/pickledragon
Summary: Apollo isn't the same person, when he returns to godhood. He's better.This is how he stays that way.
Relationships: Apollo & Meg McCaffrey
Comments: 27
Kudos: 128





	There’s A New Apollo on Mount Olympus

**Author's Note:**

> hello i finished the series and had lots of FEELINGS  
> this is also my attempt at apollo style pov so enjoy lol

Godhood doesn’t come back easy for me, and I can’t quite say I don’t understand why. I lived as Lester Papadopoulos for six months – a paltry amount of time for a god, of course, but for a mortal? I think I really did live a lifetime. It certainly changed me more than the year I spent as a reality TV star on Calliope+’s flagship reality show.

It was pain and suffering and some of the most happiness I’ve ever experienced. It was love and loss and everything in between – friendship and new mortal memories, and more than a few scars on the form of Lester. I’ve been cast down to earth before, but it didn’t feel like this – the bedrock of my beliefs has shifted now, as surely as if I’d turned up the bass on a godly hip hop album.

I am Apollo the god, yes, but also Apollo, almost human – two selves coexisting in the same form, two halves of the same coin. Perhaps the duality of Greece and Rome, or maybe just a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell – not something easily maintained. 

But never let it be said, at least not anymore, that I’m one to turn down a challenge.

Every summer, I make my way down to Camp Half Blood to stay there for the month, taking the form of Lester once again. I greet the new arrivals, set up shop in the Me cabin with the other campers. I catch up with my children, old and new (Will and Nico get more adorably sappy every visit), and even host a few archery lessons. In the rush of the summer, I’m another helping hand, splitting my time between service and painting with Rachel Dare, my chosen Oracle. It’s all I can ask for and more. Though, admittedly, I absolutely have also made it a tradition to sneak a musical alarm clock into Dionysus’ room every time I lose at pinochle. Some sibling prank traditions can never be conceded.

In the winter, I make the journey west, up to New Rome. On the way, I stop by the Waystation, do some gardening with Jo and Emmie, get covered in oil by Festus (dragons gonna dragon.) When I get to Camp Jupiter, I catch up with the Praetors, with my favorite gift shop, and with my temple to accept any offerings. Lavinia and Poison Oak like to hang out there, especially in the gardens, and I give them a wave. Sometimes I even teach a guest practical seminar, all about musical battle implementation.

I visit my old friends; I make entirely new ones. It’s an investment of time: something immortals have in surplus, and something mortals never have enough of, so it’s what I choose to give.

At first, the gods upon Olympus saw it as an odd indulgence left over from my time among the mortals, doubling in godly duties and time on earth. I spent my time amongst demigods, amongst mortals, even at increasingly complex soup tasting rituals with the troglodytes (I even received an honorary hat!). But eventually, after a few years, the gods realize I wasn’t going to stop, and grew more distant – but not for long.

Being a god and admitting you don’t know everything can be difficult (something I absolutely didn’t spend 6 months learning, no way). But it can be done – and curiosity never hurts the process. I bring other Olympians with me sometimes, when they ask why I continue – I bring them to the camp they’ll understand more, or, on a couple memorable occasions, I bring them to the Jackson/Blofis apartment for a home cooked meal (with permission, of course). Over the course of days, weeks, years, decades – I get to watch as they fall back in love with the mortal world. I smugly resist saying I told them so.

And of course, I stay friends with Meg McCaffery.

We have our monthly visits – I set my sun chariot off into the sky and I make my way to the cistern, trees growing stronger and more hardy each year. Sometimes we just stay at the Aeithales, hands working the dirt or brushing her unicorn, while I slowly meet the rest of her siblings. Just as often we take a trip out, anywhere the other wants to go. A favorite spot is the local diner, where Meg orders more fries than even a god could eat. We always talk – about life, families, godly duties, how the plants and dryads are doing. Sometimes, we brace ourselves and crack open our histories – my hands shaky and eyes downcast as I pull my past into the light. Sometimes, she talks about hers, our ordered milkshakes turning slowly into mush as she stumbles over her words, goes in for a hug afterwards. 

But, more often than not, we’re simply content to sit and watch my sun chariot sink behind the horizon, just enjoying each other’s company. It is the most human thing I know, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done, more than being a god, only pretty close to saving the world from the Triumvirate. Even better than inspiring the Beatles, if you can believe it.

I’m Apollo, the Olympian that fell to earth and decided to stay there, in spirit and in time. I want to be a god worth sacrificing to, someone that I can be proud of calling myself. I make penance for my past mistakes, my past cruelties, and I make new memories.  
This is how I choose to keep my promises.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments make my life <3  
> Find me at pickledragon.tumblr.com or instagram.com/_pickle_dragon


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